WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 249: Room 202, Curse Room - ‘The Little Mermaid’ (27)
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- Lee Eun-sol
I could hear singing.
Nearly three hundred people stood there, with Cha Jin-cheol before them. Mysterious music poured from his entire body, tickling my ears.
How could a sound like that come from his body instead of his mouth? Jin-cheol himself didn't seem to understand it either.
Many people had moved to Haesin Island because of Grandpa's scheme, yet there were still quite a few of the so-called Advanced Humans in the Research Lab. All those people had now become soldiers following Cha Jin-cheol.
Under Jin-cheol's control, the Ascended gathered weapons and equipment without a moment's hesitation, boarded the vehicles in the Research Lab, and headed for Seoul. At times like this, I felt strangely envious of people who seemed to have nothing on their minds.
Even now, our hearts were uneasy and conflicted.
Put simply, the new plan was to ease the Sea God's anger. It sounded simple enough, but there were several serious problems.
The first was whether Cha Jin-cheol could endure it. We didn't have time to go to Haesin Island, so we'd given up on freeing Elena from Sealing. That left Jin-cheol as the only one with a body durable enough to withstand the Conductor Rudah's corruption. But Rudah's corruption affected both mind and body.
Ever since the Rudah had been implanted, Jin-cheol had kept muttering that he could hear voices. Song-i stayed right beside him and used the bracelet whenever its cooldown ended, but how long could he hold out?
The second problem was whether the Sea God would be satisfied. We, who were carrying out revenge on the Sea God's behalf, had neither the ability nor the intention to bring about humanity's extinction like the Sea God could. Smashing the Management Bureau meant hitting Headquarters hard enough to make it abandon the Project, not slaughtering everyone from the lowest ranks to the top.
Would the Sea God be satisfied with revenge on that scale? Would it seem absurdly insufficient?
The third problem was the simple fact that we had to fight the Management Bureau. Raiding a single coastal Research Lab and taking on the Management Bureau Korea Branch in Seoul were completely different matters. Could we win?
The most worrying threat was the Unmanned Weapons. Many of the abilities our party possessed were useless against the Management Bureau's Unmanned Weapons. We couldn't use Possession on them or make them see illusions.
It wasn't as though we had no answers of our own.
The answer to the first problem was simple. Jin-cheol didn't need to endure for very long. By the nature of the plan, Cha Jin-cheol would charge the Management Bureau alongside the Ascended and was expected to perish anyway. He only had to hold out until we reached Seoul, and Song-i would help as much as possible until then.
The answer to the second problem was that the Sea God seemed to want an end. Based on what Ga-in heard during the first attempt and what Elena heard during the second, the Sea God wanted this room to end. So if we carried out at least some revenge and presented an answer the Hotel could acknowledge, perhaps the Sea God would accept it too.
The third problem was the biggest. No easy answer came to mind. What could we do if the Management Bureau deployed hundreds or thousands of drones to kill us?
To find an answer, A-ri and Ga-in had gone elsewhere. In the end, it depended on them. If they failed...
“Should we keep fleeing until the Sea God descends, then try playing the Flute?”
“Yes?”
“Never mind.”
I decided to stop thinking such ominous thoughts.
* * *
[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 107
Current Location: Level 2, Room 202 – Curse Room ‘The Little Mermaid’
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
While everyone else was advancing toward Seoul, why exactly was I hiking with A-ri?
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“The plan Eun-sol came up with.”
“I'm more curious about why we're hiking right now.”
“I don't really know. What exactly was this ‘wrong’ the Management Bureau committed that Eun-sol mentioned? Trying to improve humanity biologically? Was that really wrong?”
“No, where exactly are we?”
“It might have failed in the end. Even I think the Management Bureau in Room 202 made a huge misjudgment. They failed to properly consider Rudah's nature as a colony organism. Jin-cheol took control of all the Advanced Humans just by controlling one powerful Rudah, didn't he?”
“There isn't even a path around here. This isn't just leaving the hiking trail. Aren't we basically lost?”
“But that's only because we know the answer from our repeated runs. It would've been difficult for the Management Bureau to know before experiencing it. When failed attempts like this build up, eventually humanity's limits... Watch your step!”
“Argh! What is this thing?”
“There are snakes in the mountains. And listen to what I'm saying.”
“You listen to me for once!”
Silence settled over us for a moment. I sighed, but this time, I decided to go along with A-ri.
“Fine, fine. Like you said, the Management Bureau must've had its reasons. I've thought about it sometimes too, after all the hardship I've been through at the Hotel. This world is overflowing with monsters, and humans really are far too weak.”
“It's been the Management Bureau's concern for a long time, regardless of Faction.”
“I understand the intention behind trying to overcome that. I even understand using snails freely as test subjects in the process. We eat cows and pigs at every meal. I've heard cows and pigs are intelligent animals in their own way too. But I think the fundamental direction is wrong.”
“The fundamental direction?”
“Rather than sorcery, magic, or crossbreeding with supernatural creatures, shouldn't they focus on the path of science?”
“I understand what you mean. That certainly is one of the fundamental differences between the Isolation Faction and the Control Faction. But the boundary between science and magic is vague, really. Astronomy began with astrology.”
That made sense.
In a world where gods, demons, magic, and supernatural powers lived and breathed, was there any point in distinguishing magic from science? Depending on how you looked at it, perhaps we called the parts of the forces that made up the universe we understood science, and the parts we didn't understand magic.
Thinking about this conversation and yesterday's meeting brought a new question to mind.
“From what I can see, A-ri, you still don't like Eun-sol's plan.”
“That's right.”
“Then why did you say we should carry it out? Honestly, if it hadn't been for you, Eun-sol's plan would've been buried.”
When Eun-sol proposed attacking the Management Bureau last night, most of us opposed it. Setting our values aside, we weren't confident we could beat the Management Bureau.
More precisely, we weren't confident we could handle an army of Unmanned Weapons.
The reason Eun-sol's plan, which had nearly been dismissed immediately, became reality was, surprisingly, A-ri. A-ri suddenly said there was a way to bring down the Management Bureau if we limited ourselves to the Korean Branch.
A-ri was silent for a moment, then muttered with a complicated expression.
“The answer a student wants and the answer the person setting the question wants can be different.”
The answer the person setting the question wanted... The answer the Hotel wanted?
“The answer Eun-sol came up with is one that escapes the bounds of humanity. And whatever created the Hotel isn't human, at least.”
“...”
“It's an answer I can't agree with, but it felt like the kind of answer the Hotel would like.”
Funnily enough, the moment I heard that, I felt a strong sense of kinship. Didn't that sound like something cram-school teachers in Korea loved to say?
Understand the test maker's intent!
People taking a test sometimes had to write the answer the test maker liked, not the answer they wanted. That seemed to be A-ri's mindset.
“And there's one more thing.”
“One more thing?”
“It's about time we ended this room. It feels like we're close.”
Around then, A-ri suddenly stopped.
“Here.”
I couldn't see anything. Could A-ri alone sense something? A-ri suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me to stand beside her.
“Don't you feel anything?”
“... It feels suffocating.”
“Suffocating? Not refreshing or cool?”
“It feels like something very heavy is pressing down on me.”
For the first time, A-ri's expression, which had been playful throughout our climb, darkened slightly.
“Yeah...”
“Did I sense something strange?”
“No.”
A-ri muttered something with an unfamiliar pronunciation and touched the empty air. The next moment, an opaque door suddenly appeared in midair!
It was bizarre. Beyond the door was a small house-like structure made of some unknown kind of wood. A dark tunnel stretched behind it.
There was no handle on the door. It appeared to be a door that couldn't be opened from our side, only from the other.
“What kind of spell is this? What's that shrine? It looks like someone's inside.”
Rather than answering, A-ri continued muttering strange things.
...
Was it over now? A-ri, who had gone quiet at some point, looked at me.
“Do you remember what my grandfather and I told you before? Why we entered the Hotel.”
“You said your goal was to find a power that could stabilize reality.”
“Have you ever thought about that?”
“I thought it was something I couldn't understand, so I let it go.”
“If something is needed to stabilize reality, then looking at it the other way around means the reality we've lived in hasn't been stable.”
Now that I heard it, that was true.
“I'll show you what that means. See the person beyond the door?”
As A-ri said, someone stood motionless like a stone statue near the wooden structure on the other side of the door. The person had a relatively small build, and they were not a woman. The door was opaque, so it was difficult to make out anything more.
“Use Possession on that person and open the door. Then it'll be over.”
As I approached the door as instructed, A-ri added one more thing.
“Don't ever go through the tunnel.”
“Hm?”
“You see the house beyond the door? Don't ever go through the tunnel behind it. If you go through it, everything will be over in more ways than one.”
My consciousness slowly rose into the air. I was only using Possession again, something I'd done dozens of times already...
Yet this Possession felt subtly different from usual. Strangely, it felt as though I was taking possession of a body far away, very far away.
When I came to my senses, I had awakened beyond the door.
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